


benediction

by heeryor_lunboks



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: M/M, Ritual Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-09-26 20:44:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20395882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heeryor_lunboks/pseuds/heeryor_lunboks
Summary: Fjord is reborn from a seaweed cocoon on the slopes of a volcano in the middle of snow-capped mountains. He wants to call it the strangest experience of his life, but it does have some serious competition.





	benediction

**Author's Note:**

> Another great prompt [from the kink meme](https://criticalkink.dreamwidth.org/3194.html?thread=1161082#cmt1161082)!
> 
> (Also, [a visual ref for silversword](https://flic.kr/p/5Y21od), because look how cool that plant is.)

Fjord is reborn from a seaweed cocoon on the slopes of a volcano nestled in the middle of snow-capped mountains. He wants to call it the strangest experience of his life, but it does have some serious competition.

His skin feels sensitive and new as Jester pulls him from the coils of warm kelp and drapes him in a cloak, the cold biting sharp and clean as they bundle him off towards the forge.

His entire body feels—weird. Good, but weird, tender all over. He's suddenly aware of muscles he didn’t even know existed, but it’s a clean ache, like the end of a day’s work hauling line. It also feels like going through puberty all over again, awkward in the space he occupies, unfamiliar with the strength of his limbs.

“So what do we do with your seaweed cocoon?” Jester says, poking him in the side. “Do we, like, have to eat it or something?”

“I know some seaweed recipes,” Caduceus says cheerfully.

Fjord puts his head in his hands. “Please don’t.”

There’s a sense of relief so thick it’s almost palpable, everyone almost giddy with it. Beau keeps on elbowing his side, grinning and grinning. Caleb keeps orbiting back to him and finding reasons to grasp his hand, as if making sure that this change is real, permanent. Nott says that he might be just strong enough to lift his sword now, if he puts his back into it. Jester is incandescent in her relief and joy for him, hugging him tight enough to make his bones creak. His aching muscles protest, but he takes it gladly. 

And all through this, Caduceus. Fjord keeps on catching him staring. His gaze almost feels like a physical thing, unabashed in its glowing pride. It’s kind of overwhelming, and Fjord doesn’t know what to do with it.

He doesn't know what to expect when Caduceus pulls him aside in the evening. 

“Can you come with me for a sec, Fjord? I want to show you something. You'll like it, I think." Caduceus smiles at him. Fjord would once have called the expression unreadable, but he's pretty sure that it's just Caduceus being Caduceus.

“Of course,” Fjord says. What else is he going to say? 

"Something" turns out to be somewhere deep into the bowels of the volcano, down and down and down through rough-hewn rock passages. Fjord sure hopes that Caduceus knows where he’s going, because he has no idea where they are. But Caduceus seems sure, seeking out something like a compass pointing north.

The heat gets thicker and more insistent as they descend. Eventually, the passage becomes level, and the heat evens out something similar to a summer evening. Caduceus steps into a dark alcove and gestures for him to follow. Okay. 

There are decorations around the entrance to the alcove, finely-carved spiralling patterns that overlap and twine with each other, and the floor is springy below his feet when he steps in, following Caduceus. Fjord looks down to a thick carpet of moss at his feet. He bends down to run his hands over it to make sure that it's real, because seriously, what the hell, moss in the bowels of a volcano. It's cool and faintly damp under his hands, real as anything. Low to the ground like this, there's a even a faint mist, the heat of the earth around them meeting the cool moisture like a morning fog.

“Let’s get some light in here. I can’t see a thing,” Caduceus says.

The familiar glow of Caduceus’s staff appears, and Fjord squints, letting his eyes adjust.

The light expands to fill the room, revealing walls covered with bursts of brightness, silvery blades reaching for them from the high, arcing ceiling, springing from the walls. 

At first glance, it looks like a bristling forest of daggers, but they resolve into clusters of plants, silver blade-like clusters of leaves that cover every surface of the alcove. The edges are pink with the glow of Caduceus’s light, the graceful curves of their leaves made joyful with their presence. 

It’s like nothing he's ever seen before.

“Silversword, they call it,” Caduceus says. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

“How? There’s no sunlight down here.” His voice is hoarse. 

“They find a way, with her grace,” Caduceus says happily, looking around himself. “This is so great. This is the first time that I’ve seen them. I think they only grow by volcanoes. ”

The silver blades encircle them, sharp and smooth and beautiful and protective. Fjord feels a swell in his throat. 

“Thank you,” he says, catching Caduceus’s wrist. “I. I don’t know how to tell you how much this means to me. I couldn’t have done it without your help.”

Caduceus looks at him. “I didn’t do much. You did the important bits, right? And now, you’ve got a way forward.”

“I—” Fjord says, and doesn’t know how to continue.

Caduceus waits, patient as the earth. 

Fjord reaches for the silvery plants. Their spiked sprouts are smooth under his fingers, and there is no danger in their bright blades. He wishes he knew what he was doing. 

Fjord doesn’t know how to say that he doesn’t know where to go from here. It feels ungrateful. He feels as though he’s been running, and running, and running, and struggling to catch breaths from the grasp of scaled coils, and now that a way is open to him, he—he doesn’t know what to do. What is expected of him. 

“I don’t know what she wants me to be for her.” It tumbles out of him ungracefully, too bare and too messy.

“I don’t know that she wants you to be anything in particular,” Caduceus says. "She wanted you for yourself, right?"

Fjord looks off to the side. He can’t seem to meet the singular intensity of Caduceus’s pink eyes. 

“I just—I want to know how I can be of use. How I can thank her.”

Caduceus tilts his head. “Hm. Ask her, maybe? Sometimes asking directly avoids some misunderstandings.” 

Fjord smiles, a little lopsided. “I suppose I have trouble believing that I can do that? Ask and get an answer that isn’t, well, drowning and seawater bad times.”

Caduceus laughs. “That’s understandable.” 

Caduceus reaches for him and catches his hands. He sits down on the mossy floor, and Fjord follows, facing him like their meditation sessions.

“Give it a try,” Caduceus says. He gestures to the bright walls around them. “It’s a good place to ask. You might be surprised.”

Even after everything, even after undeniable physical proof that there’s someone listening, it still feels—silly. To speak into a space as nothing but himself and expect to be heard. He turns over a hundred abandoned scraps of questions in his head, agonizes over the proper way to address a fucking goddess, panics a little at the mere thought that after everything, there might not be any answer. 

“My lady, could you tell me how I might thank you?” 

His own words bounce back at him from the bristling walls. Fjord can’t help but cringe. It feels presumptuous, too forward by half. His voice sounds weak and uncertain to him, still unfamiliar to his own ears.

A moment, and an indulgent, warm laugh in his head. Fjord doesn’t dare breathe.

_There is no need for thanks, my child. You honor me by your existence and your actions. I am lucky to have you._

Her voice lands like a blow to the chest, leaving him helpless and incapacitated with gratefulness. He can feel tears prickle at his eyes. It’s embarrassing.

_I am lucky to have you._

He isn’t sure he believes it, but he aches with how badly he wants to.

“Still,” he croaks. “I would—I would know what I can do for you.”

Another pause. And then a cool, fragrant breeze that cuts through the heat of the room.

_Plunge your hands into the soil of dying lands. Make what is burned and salted grow dark and fertile. Bring things to bloom and nurse them to their natural ends._

Fjord swallows. It’s a lot. Caduceus squeezes his hands, encouraging.

“I, uh. I can try. Anything, uh, more immediate I can do for you?”

A pause, almost a moment of consideration.

_My servant has given you to me. I would give you to him, as well._

He swears he feels a glancing touch on his jaw, guiding him to meet Caduceus’s eyes.

Fjord doesn’t dare breathe. He’s not sure he understands. Caduceus’s eyes are calm, quietly intense.

_Fill my faithful vessel, my clay. Give him my love. We would be the first to have him, and that is a joyful thing._

“She’s. She's giving me to you,” Fjord says, his voice hoarse. “If you’ll have me.”

Caduceus squeezes his hands again.

“I will accept her gifts with joy and care,” Caduceus says. It sounds like ritual, like a phrase oft-repeated over eons.

Caduceus takes the hand that bears Caleb’s glove. He bends over it to pull at the laces, his face concentrated, tugging them loose to slip the glove from Fjord’s hand, placing it carefully off to the side. 

The slow grace of his movements is familiar. It reminds Fjord of when he would watch Caduceus prepare tea, admiring the practiced ease in his gestures. 

Caduceus turns Fjord’s hand over and bends over it, the blunt tip of his nose glancing against the inside of Fjord’s wrist as he takes a deep breath. 

Fjord doesn’t dare move, doesn’t dare breathe. He feels like porcelain in Caduceus’s careful grip. 

Caduceus makes a rumbling satisfied sound. He shifts, unhurried, like he’s got all the time in the world, and then places his mouth on the thin skin of Fjord's wrist, his mouth open and wet and hot. 

Fjord's body jolts, curling towards Caduceus uncontrollably, and seriously, what, what the fuck, it’s like nothing he ever felt before. The noise he makes is all kinds of undignified. 

“Caduceus—”

Every inch of his skin feels tender and new. He doesn’t know if it’s his imagination. 

When he looked in the reflective surface of a shield in the forge, he was still familiar. Same scar on his face. Same shock of white in his hair that he got when he was twenty-one. Same stubby growing-out tusks. But he feels changed. An old, battered layer of skin slipping off to bare sensitive new flesh. The heat of the forge, the snap of the cold outside, the worn suppleness of his leathers, the heat of Caduceus's mouth—everything is intense, almost unbearably so. 

Caduceus doesn’t seem to give it any mind. He noses again at Fjord’s wrist, then drags the heat of his mouth over the shifting tendons. Fjord convulses again, awash with sensation. 

“You taste like her,” Caduceus says with matter-of-fact reverence, and Fjord feels undone.

“I think that might be the seaweed,” he says weakly. 

“Hm? I don’t think so,” Caduceus says. “Seaweed doesn’t taste like that.”

Fjord opens his mouth. Closes it. He leans forward, made bold by the cool rush of air around them. 

He kisses Caduceus, first one cheek and then the other. Chaste, like a greeting. Nice to meet you.

Caduceus doesn’t let him pull back. His hand cups Fjord’s nape and pulls him in again, deepening the kiss. He slips his tongue into Fjord’s mouth, as though tasting him. His mouth is broad and firm, exploring his mouth, seeking.

Fjord feels his spine go soft and helpless. Caduceus bears him down, gentle, insistent, until he's bent over Fjord like a willow over a stream, his hands braced above Fjord’s shoulders and the bright curtain of his hair brushing Fjord’s jaw. Even in this alcove, Fjord can feel the heat of the forge through the moss, like the faint echo of sun-warmed rocks on the shore. Caduceus pushes his mouth against his jaw, taking a deep breath. 

Caduceus is so big, and there’s an unexpected sturdiness to his long, spindly form. His weight feels good, grounding, even as breathless heat rushes up Fjord’s spine. Fjord’s hands flutter, landing on Caduceus’s sharp hips. His touch slips below the edge of Caduceus's coarse linen shirt, stroking over the fine, velvety fur. 

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Caduceus says cheerfully.

Fjord laughs. “Neither do I?” 

It feels so easy to say. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, he doesn’t know who he is, and for once, it feels like it might be okay.

He grasps for Caduceus when he draws back, but Caduceus reaches for his clothes instead, carefully working at the closures of his tunic, and okay, he's definitely on board with that. 

When they’re both bare, Caduceus sits back to look at him. His gaze is straightforward, but there’s an intensity to it that makes part of Fjord want to hide, suddenly self-conscious about—he doesn’t know. His skin toughened by work and salt, the ungainliness of his frame made suddenly bigger, the uncertain half-growth of his tusks? It’s ridiculous, when he thinks about it, but he can’t help but feel exposed, especially next to Caduceus’s ease in his own skin. 

“Look at you,” Caduceus says with a quiet, matter-of-fact awe. He passes his hand over Fjord’s chest, coming to rest on his sternum. There’s almost too much feeling in his skin, too much to hold. “She made you anew. Well, no. Made you who you’re supposed to be, maybe.”

Caduceus shifts back, and the slick heat of him drags along Fjord's cock, his length rubbing up between Caduceus’s folds, and Fjord cries out. Caduceus is so, so wet, like late spring, like the thick air before a storm. Caduceus hums, deep and content. Fjord can feel it vibrate in his chest. 

“Oh. Oh, that’s nice,” Caduceus says. 

He rocks his hips carefully, reaching back, and slowly fits Fjord inside himself. 

He's so tight, so hot inside. Fjord is almost scared to hurt him. But he wants to trust that the Wildmother would not ask him to do anything to hurt Caduceus, and Caduceus seems to be doing just fine. He sinks down further, a look of concentration on his face. 

The tightness eases, and Fjord feels the clutch of Caduceus’s body open for him, sweet and easy. Caduceus shifts his hips back, seeking, and the thicker second ridge of Fjord’s cock slots into him. It makes Fjord see stars, and Caduceus shudders all over, making a deep, pleased noise. His hips dip shallowly, working the ridge of Fjord’s cock in and out of himself until they’re both panting. 

“Is it—is it all right?” Fjord says, breathless, desperate. Wanting to please. Wanting to fuck Caduceus into sated softness. Wanting to give anything that he can give.

“Mm,” Caduceus says, after a moment's thought. "I. Oh. Oh, I like it. I like it a lot. Feels nice, you know? Full." He strokes Fjord’s jaw. “You’re doing good.”

It feels like a benediction. There’s a rush of heat along the ridge of his spine, in his chest. 

Caduceus shudders, his long body spilling against Fjord, covering him as they move against each other, easy as the swell of waves against a beach. The smell of wet earth is thick and lush on Caduceus’s skin. The fall of his hair is bright, faded to a dusty, cool pink at the roots, proof of his own body adapting to the land around them. He's the strangest, most beautiful thing that Fjord has ever seen.

Caduceus takes Fjord all the way to the base with a breathless groan, and Fjord throws his head back, everything so tight, so hot, so utterly overwhelming. 

“You smell like the sea,” Caduceus says. “Like the first time I saw it.”

Fjord doesn’t trust himself to speak. He reaches between them to touch Caduceus, quick, firm circles on him as Caduceus grows more breathless, a heavy whine escaping him. He wants to give Caduceus this, to serve him as he might serve his goddess. 

Caduceus clenches around him, shaking and sudden, and Fjord gasps, reaches up to cup Caduceus’s jaw. Caduceus turns his mouth into his hand, his breath held in Fjord’s palm. Fjord feels dwarfed by everything encompassing him, feels powerful beyond belief, feels safe and cradled like never before. When he comes, it feels like giving himself over, like letting go and trusting that he will be caught. 

He touches Caduceus’s skinny chest, feeling its rise and fall under his hand, and between his fingers, green sprouts rise from Caduceus’s skin, turn to bright bloom, wilt to dust, and rise again in a span of seconds, over and over, endless and hallucinatory. He touches Caduceus’s collarbone, and delicate veiled mushrooms sprout along its rise. Soft, tender moss blooms along the line of Caduceus’s neck. 

_This, I entrust to you. This, I would have you entrust to each other._

Caduceus lifts off of his cock with a low, satisfied groan. Fjord slips his hand down to cup him lightly, giving him pressure to move against, if he wants it. A swell of pride blooms in his chest when Caduceus cups his hand over his with a low, happy hum, his hips slowly rolling into Fjord’s palm. He can feel the wet softness of Caduceus against his hand, and he wonders, with a rush of embarrassed heat, if he can feel his come in Caduceus as well. 

Another rolling wave of feeling seems to pass over Caduceus, a slow wash of uncomplicated pleasure. He tips over to lie next to Fjord.

Caduceus cups his face. His blunt thumb strokes over Fjord’s cheek. 

“You’re going to be great,” Caduceus says, after a moment. "You’re going to do amazing things."

Fjord ducks his head. “I hope so.”

“You are,” Caduceus says, easy as that. He stretches. “Hm. I’m kind of hungry. Should I make us something?”

Fjord laughs. It rises out of him, easy and undeniable. Everything is changed, and yet nothing is changed. He laughs and laughs as Caduceus looks over at him with friendly bemusement.

Fjord brushes the remnants of flower petals and moss away from Caduceus’s chest. There’s a part of his mind that says that this horticultural sex thing is this is pretty fucking weird, but he can’t bring himself to give it much mind. 

Caduceus is solid beside him, warm and present. Beau and Jester and Caleb and Nott are with him, willing to trust him in a way that makes an awed gratefulness rise in his chest. There’s an alcove of silvery sword-plants in a volcano, and there’s the smell of spring blossoms and kelp in the middle of a snowy wilderness. None of it makes any sense.

But Fjord wants to believe in it.


End file.
